The Story of Kijimi
by Tathrin
Summary: After the end of the war, Finn demands to know the real story behind Poe Dameron's revelation of a spice-smuggling past. (contains Rise of Skywalker spoilers)


The mingled celebration and wake had now wound down to its last fading embers, the bonfires slowly dying and the surviving intermingled members of the Resistance and the Civilian Fleet drifting away one by one or in pairs or groups to find somewhere to bunk down for the night or settle in for a quieter cluster of conversation.

Finn was feeling pleasantly warm, happy, and tired. He felt...it was a struggle to find the word; it wasn't a feeling he could remember ever experiencing before, not truly. _ Content _ . That's how he felt, _ content _. At peace with the galaxy around him.

Rey was curled up on one side of him, head burrowed into the crook of her arms, disconcertingly loud snores rising from her skinny frame; apparently coming back from the _ dead _ was tiring. (Finn hadn't let her out of his sight, and barely out of arm's-reach, since hearing that part of her story.) Reverberating from somewhere nearby, Finn could hear the even-louder snores of Chewbacca. He had also returned from the dead in a manner of speaking, albeit less mystically.

Slumped comfortably against Finn's other shoulder was Poe, his curls mussed in wild disarray from several sweaty hours under a snubfighter helmet and a few hundred hugs and hair-rufflings. The cup of _ tihaar _still held loosely in one of the pilot's dextrous hands was an empty as Finn's own mug, but he seemed in no more hurry to foist himself to his feet in search of a refill than was Finn.

From the sleepy look on Poe's face, he was enjoying that same sense of total contentment-

Or _ almost _total contentment.

One thing was still bothering Finn, after everything. Now seemed as good a time as any to talk about it - maybe the _ only _time. Tomorrow they would have to begin the hard work of rebuilding the galaxy: hunting down the scraps of the First Order, forging ties and treaties with disparate planetary governments, liberating those still under that now-disembodied tyrannical fist, constructing laws and policies by which a diverse galaxy could be fairly governed…

For tonight, they could rest. And Finn knew he would rest better after knowing the _ truth_.

"So spice running, huh?" he said.

Poe gave a grunt and a start, making Finn think that he had been less _ content _ and more _ half-asleep _ \- but it was too late to feel guilty for waking him now, the damage was already done.

"Gotta admit, I didn't see that coming."

Poe shot him a look; Finn pretended that the fading embers of the nearest bonfire were too dim for him to see it.

He could see him with heartbreaking clarity, though, barely more than a handspan from the side of his own face. Poe's jaw worked, he licked his lips, he drew in a heavy breath and held it…

Then finally let it out in a rush, sagging like a droid whose power source had been severed. He looked, for maybe the first time that Finn could remember noticing it, _ old_.

"Yeah, well...it's not exactly how it looks," Poe muttered.

Finn kept staring straight ahead, holding his eyes fixed rigidly on one cracking coal. "Oh?" he said.

Poe sighed again. He ran a hand through his messy curls, dishevelling them further. From the corner of his own eye, Finn could see Poe's darting around, as though checking to make sure there was no one close enough to overhear - but they were alone in the dwindling cluster of survivors, Rey deep in an exhausted slumber beside them and no one else closer than Chewbacca's rumbling snores. He'd lost track of Rose somewhere around his second helping of roast topatos, remembered watching her bustled-off by her fellow mechanics amidst a gale of laughter; had lost track of Jannah even earlier, swept away for some excited conversation by Lando and the rest of her squad; BB-8 had gone trundling-off with a cluster of other astromechs, new friend whirling in his wake like a lost kath hound. Everyone else had flitted in and out of Finn's awareness, exchanging hugs and handclasps and sobs and stories. It had been a _ good night _…

But now it was just the three of them - two, really, since Rey was too deep in slumber to count as a participant in _ anything _right now.

Maybe it wasn't fair for Finn to press Poe about his past; one of the founding principles of the Resistance seemed to be an unspoken understanding that _ who you were _ before you joined wasn't something on which you deserved to be judged; wasn't something for which you had to explain or _ apologize_. Wasn't Finn himself proof of that, former stormtrooper than he was?

Who was he, then, to hold Poe to stricter standards? But Poe was _ different_. Poe was...well, _ Poe Dameron _ . Hotshot flyboy and hero of the Resistance, acting general who had pulled them all together through the hole left by Leia's loss...the man who had first drawn Finn away from the First Order, the man who had given him a _ name _ \- an _ identity _ of his own.

Poe Dameron was more than just some _ reformed spice smuggler_…

"I did it for Leia," Poe muttered.

He'd spoken so quietly that Finn wasn't sure he'd heard him correctly at first. "Leia?" he asked.

"Keep your voice down," Poe hissed. His eyes flicked anxiously from side to side and his muscles had gone taut and tight as durasteel; Finn could feel them throbbing against his arm. "Yes, for Leia."

"You're telling me it was a mission?" Finn felt dubious - but also hopeful. "Like something undercover?"

"Not...exactly." Poe squirmed, reminding Finn suddenly of BB-8 when the little droid had been up to some hijinks that it didn't want to admit to.

"So what was it, then?" Finn's voice was flat. "Exactly."

The sigh Poe let out was as strangled as if he'd just tried to cheat Chewbacca at dejarik. "Fine, okay? Fine, just don't...don't _ tell _anyone, okay?"

Finn's eyebrows crept up toward his hairline. "Um, I don't think you need to keep mission security anymore…"

"Yeah, well, I do, because it wasn't a _ mission_, okay?" The words escaped Poe in an explosive rush. "It was a favor. A personal favor. And one that could have made big trouble for the Resistance if anyone had found out about it - one that might _ still _make trouble for us, now, if the truth got out. So keep it to yourself, okay?"

It was Finn's turn to squirm. "Maybe you shouldn't tell me, then…"

"No, it's - it's okay." Poe took a deep breath then turned toward Finn. The smile on his face was limp and watery, but it shone from his eyes like starlight. "If it's you, it's okay."

Finn forgot that he was trying to act tough, was trying not to look at Poe; he turned and looked. "Oh," he said. "Okay. Well...I promise not to tell anyone."

"Even Rey."

Finn's eyebrows went back up, but he nodded. "Even Rey. Okay."

"Okay," said Poe. He repeated it twice more; seemed to need to psyche himself up for the conversation. "Sorry," he mumbled. "It's just...I haven't even told my _ dad _ the truth about this. It's hard to get started…"

"Start at the beginning," Finn suggested.

Poe let out a short bark of laughter. "Yeah, it's that easy. Sure. Okay." He closed his eyes, linked his fingers through Finn's as though seeking a loan of strength. Finn squeezed back, warm and reassuring.

At last Poe spoke: "It was 'cause of Han, mostly. I was sixteen, still living on Yavin IV with my dad, tooling around in whatever old ships I could get my hands on, dreaming of joining the New Republic Flight Academy and making a name for myself as a pilot like my mom. Leia showed up to visit to my dad - they'd fought together in the Rebellion, you know - but it wasn't a social call. She was looking for Han. He'd gotten himself into some kind of trouble, something he hadn't wanted to drag her into with him - but he hadn't gotten back _ out _ of it. Hadn't _ come back_, yet. Him and Chewie, both. And Leia was worried."

"So she asked you to track him down?" Finn guessed.

Poe shook his head. "No, she just wanted to know if dad had seen him. I guess she knew Han had gotten in contact with _ some _old friend to start with, so she was making the rounds in hopes of figuring out who, and thus where he was now. He hadn't come to dad," Poe continued, "but I overheard her telling him why she was there."

"You just 'happened' to overhear, huh?" Finn observed slyly.

Poe met his smirk with a scowl. "Okay, I eavesdropped. Happy?"

Finn nodded magnanimously. "Thrilled. Proceed."

Poe rolled his eyes at him. "All right, so after _ eavesdropping _ on the General - although she wasn't the General yet then, not exactly, the Resistance was in its early stages...not that most anyone _ else _ knew that yet, but Leia had already caught-on to the fact that the Imperial Remnant was starting to become more than just a _ remnant _ \- to the fact that they were a _ threat_. And that's why she was trying to keep the search for Han and Chewie on the down-low: she was also lobbying the New Republic government to assign more resources to anti-Imperial - anti-_First Order _ \- activities, only nobody else wanted to believe there could be another war. Nobody else wanted to _ deal _ with the fact that there was _ going _to be another war. And Leia knew she couldn't risk getting tangled-up in some underworld grudge, not right then."

"So she asked you," Finn guess.

Poe shook his head again. "Nope," he said. "I volunteered."

"Volunteered?"

"To find Han and Chewie for her, while she went back to work building what was going to become the Resistance." The flush on Poe's cheeks was hard to make-out in the gathering darkness, but Finn thought he looked equal parts shamefaced and smug. "I'd grown-up on stories of my mom and dad's time in the Rebellion, right?" he continued, almost apologetically. "On stories about Leia and Han and Luke and Chewbacca and Lando...Ackbar, Wedge, Tycho, Bel Iblis, Mon Mothma...everybody, you know, the whole collection of Rebel Heroes."

Finn nodded, although even now he still knew only scraps and distorted fragments about half the names that Poe had rattled-off like old friends.

"That's what I wanted to do," Poe continued. "What I'd _ always _ wanted to do. Fight to save the galaxy, fly against the Empire...be a hero. Like my parents, like my _ mom_. And here was Leia Organa herself, in need of help." He shrugged modestly. "What else could I do?"

"So you offered to go track down Han and Chewie for her."

"Actually," Poe admitted sheepishly, "I stowed-away on her ship."

"You did what?"

"Shh!" Poe flapped his hands frantically, making _ shush_-ing motions and glancing around nervously. "Keep your voice down!"

"Sorry." Finn dropped his tones back to a hushed whisper then repeated, "You did what?"

"I stowed-away on her ship, okay? Or I thought I did, anyway. I guess she knew I was there almost right away, but she hadn't stopped me. Just waited until we were on our first hyperspace jump, then knocked on the bulkhead I thought I'd been so clever squirreling myself away behind and told me to come out and explain what I thought I was doing." Poe shrugged and sighed. "So I did."

"And she...went along with it?"

"It took some convincing," Poe allowed vaguely. "But I pointed-out that she'd already been wrapped-up in the fight against the Empire by the time she was my age, and she relented."

Finn raised his eyebrows higher. "She relented."

"Sometimes Leia does that!" Poe protested. They both winced, and Poe muttered, "_Did _that. Sorry."

Finn squeezed his hand again. "It's okay," he said.

It wasn't. But there was nothing they could do about it.

Poe cleared his throat after a moment and went on, "Well, so she helped me catch a ride and get started and eventually I ended up on Kijimi."

"Smuggling spice," Finn said tonelessly.

"Yes, smuggling spice," Poe said, "but for a _ good cause_. I'd tracked down Han and Chewie's last known whereabouts to the stronghold of this cartel operating in the Kijimi sector, but I couldn't get any further - not without getting on the _ inside_."

Finn nodded slowly as the decacred finally dropped.

"So you started smuggling spice."

"So I found a crew that had ties to the cartel that needed a pilot, and I worked my way inside. Told them I was a runaway who needed work, needed money - wasn't even totally a lie. Did their dirty work, gained their trust-"

"And found Han?"

Poe nodded. "And found Han. Turned out he and Chewie had run afoul of this real nasty piece of work, a Hutt who had decided that the two of them owed him some kind of life debt in response for something that had gone down during their time with the Rebellion - some old debts from back when _ they _ had been spice smugglers," Poe added, giving Finn a haughty look; Finn ignored him.

Spice had always been a low-down, filthy enterprise and they both knew it, but they also knew that smuggling it to scrape a living under the durasteel fist of the tyrannical Empire was a far cry in terms of moral depths from those scum-feeders who ran illegal spice during the brief, bright heyday of the New Republic. In both cases it had been a crime, but almost every crime was a little more understandable - if not also more excusable - when the galaxy's governing body was _ itself _ a crime against freedom.

Finn wondered if whatever new government they were going to set up now in the New Republic's place would be able to stamp the filthy habit out for good - but he wasn't naive enough to think it likely. There were too many legitimate medical uses for the major types of spice to eradicate production altogether; Finn himself still regularly used a rylca salve on the scars he'd gotten from Kylo Ren's lightsaber to keep the skin and muscles limber. There were plenty of species who didn't suffer the nasty ill-effects or addictive properties that affected humans and made spice such a plague in some places. Even if they could have gotten rid of it altogether, there were too many reasons not to - and as long as there was spice still being mined somewhere in the galaxy, there would be someone there to help it slip through the cracks to the places and people where it _ shouldn't _go…

"So," Finn said, forcing his brain back on track. "You found Han and Chewie. Then what?"

"Then?" Poe shrugged. "Then I staged a jailbreak, got them out of there before the Hutt knew what was going on, got off-world and got back to Leia."

"And left Zorii and the rest of your crew holding the bag."

Poe winced. "Yeah," he said. "I didn't feel great about that even then, but it's not like I could have told them the truth."

"Not even Zorii?" Finn asked, his voice carefully neutral.

Poe looked sideways at him; Finn pretended not to notice. "What, you think just because she answered the call to Exogol she was secretly loyal to the Resistance and I should have trusted her with Leia's secrets?"

Finn shrugged. "No, I just...I don't know, you two seemed..._close_…"

Poe nodded. "Yeah, she was probably my closest friend in the Crew, but she was also a _ spice smuggler_, Finn. A criminal. A friend and a good person, overall - but not somebody I could risk telling that kind of secret." A crooked grin stole across his face. "She'd have just sold me out to the Hutt anyway if I'd tried." The tone of his voice was more amused - even respectful - than anything, as though the idea of being betrayed like that by a friend didn't bother him - and maybe, with friends like that, it hadn't.

Finn studied the fading embers and raised his eyebrows. "Just a friend, huh? You go around trading kisses with everybody you were 'friends' with on this Crew, did you?"

Poe burst out laughing. "What are you-? Oh, that!" He shook his head, still chuckling. "Finn, she doesn't have a _ mouth_."

"What!?"

"Zorii was in a horrible speeder accident when she was younger. Really messed her up, almost killed her. She's almost completely cyborg now. Babu Frik did a lot of the work on her new body, actually - that's how they ended up in the Crew together."

"I...I had no idea," Finn said. He sounded stunned; he _ was _stunned.

Poe shrugged. "Zorii isn't exactly shy about it, I wouldn't have said anything otherwise. But yeah, most of her is droid now. Including the lower half of her face."

"So...no lips, no kissing."

Poe laughed. "No lips, no kissing," he repeated.

Finn frowned at him. "And that was a thing you joked about?"

Poe shrugged again. "Like I said, Zorii isn't _ shy _about her cybernetics. She says she feels more like herself now than she ever did back when she was solid flesh. Says she likes all the options it gives her for upgrades and alterations and such."

"Really."

"I don't know if it's true, but that's what she says," Poe insisted. "Ask her yourself, if you want."

Finn filed that idea away under _ things he would never do _ and tried to get the conversation back on track: "So...you infiltrated the Hutt's stronghold, got out again, left and never looked back?"

"I did, yes." Poe heaved a heavy sigh. "I'm not proud of it, Finn. That's why I never wanted to even _ think _about Kijimi again, let alone go back there - but yeah. I did. Because the important thing was getting Han and Chewie out of there in one piece, and keeping Leia from being associated with the whole affair."

"Okay," Finn said, "but why continue keeping it a secret _ now?" _

"Are you kidding?" Poe looked at him askance. "Finn, do you have any idea how many jurisdiction violations that was? How illegal it was? I actually _ smuggled spice_, Finn - and I did it on the General's say-so! We're on the brink of trying to put together a new galactic government, mostly built off Leia's reputation. Chewbacca is going to be one of our most influential ambassadors. We can't have either of them tangled up in that sort of thing - nor the Resistance, either, and Leia technically used Resistance resources before there was any kind of even unofficial charter with the New Republic for her to be operating anything like that…"

"Okay, but-"

"The First Order was involved."

Finn's protest died as if it had run full-tilt into a shield generator. "What?" he said.

Poe didn't look happy about it but he nodded. "Yeah. They were tangled up with the cartel - were already using them to steal kids, although we didn't figure that out at the time. Didn't figure that out until just recently when I went back and all the pieces fell into place, actually."

"That means you were technically spying on the First Order…"

"Before there was any proven evidence or legal brief to do so?" Poe finished. "Yeah. Leia knew they were trouble before the rest of the galaxy even knew what they _ were_. But if word got out she was working against them that early…"

"They might blame her for the escalation in hostilities," Finn groaned, "rather that accept that the war was the First Order's _ whole point_, and that nothing would have stopped their attempt at conquest."

"Even worse, they might not just stick to blaming Leia for the past. It might make some systems skittish about working with us now…"

"Worried that we'd jump to conclusions without evidence or launch preemptive strikes against _ them _just because we had a 'bad feeling' or didn't like their looks or something like that," Finn finished heavily. "I get it."

Poe nodded. "Yeah," he said. "Better if everybody just thinks I was some hot-headed punk kid who ran off to sow some wild oats, then got my head screwed back on straight and joined the New Republic Flight Academy before jumping ship to the Resistance - my _ first _ tie to the Resistance, as far as everybody else is concerned."

"But Poe, you…" Finn shook his head mutely, unable to properly articulate how the idea that the rest of the galaxy would think Poe Dameron had been some scummy spice smuggler made him feel.

Poe seemed to understand anyway. "Hey," he said, raising their linked hands and nudging Finn reassuringly in the ribs with their joint elbows, "it's not a big deal. I was a stupid kid, it's easy for people to forgive mistakes like that when it's just a kid. There's a lot of stories like that out there. And I don't mind being everybody's 'kid who turned his life around and did the right thing in the end' redemption story."

"You seemed pretty bothered on Kijimi," Finn pointed out.

Poe hitched his shoulders uncomfortably. "That was different," he muttered. "That was...was you and Rey. Mostly you, looking at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like I'd let you down."

For a long moment neither of them said anything. Rey mumbled something in her sleep. Finn rubbed her side and she quieted again.

"I guess I just...didn't like thinking about you like that. Like you were somebody who would smuggle spice."

"Everybody's got mistakes in their past, Finn," Poe pointed out reasonably. "And I _ did _ smuggle spice."

"But for a good _ cause," _Finn protested.

Poe shrugged. "Doesn't change the fact I did it," he said, although his attempt at a casual devil-may-care tone fell flat.

"But no one will ever know _ why." _

"You know."

"Yeah, but…"

"Better me than the General," Poe insisted. "My reputation can take the hit."

"It shouldn't have to," Finn grunted petulantly.

Poe shrugged. "Somebody's does. And I'm the one who did it."

"But…"

"The old Rebellion had a fine tradition of reformed spice smugglers," Poe said breezily. "Han, Chewie, Wedge...heck, every single person in the Rebellion got a Death Mark on their head the minute the Empire identified 'em. They were all criminals."

"It's not the same," Finn insisted.

"I know, buddy." Poe leaned his head against Finn's shoulder. "It means a lot to me that you care, though."

"Of course I care," Finn retorted sharply. He cleared his throat gruffly and added, "You're the first friend I ever had. It reflects badly on me if you've got big moral failings."

Poe barked a startled laugh. "Oh, well, we wouldn't want to do that, would we?" he said.

"You better not," said Finn stoutly. "My friends are really impressive. You don't want to mess with me."

"Oh yeah?" said Poe, grinning. "What are you, some kind of big man in the Resistance?"

"You bet I am," Finn said. "I'm a general."

"A general, is it? Well, I'd better behave myself. I wouldn't want to cross a general."

"Damn right, you wouldn't...general."


End file.
